FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Wendell, what do those numbers mean?" I ask.

"I don't know." He says. "But I think intended for us to see this. Otherwise, why do it in the first place?"

"I'm not sure." We look around a little bit more. All of the cabin is trashed. I look around in the dirty clothes while Wendell looks through the dresser a bit more in case we missed something. While we look, I can't help but think of what that number could mean. 826. Sounds like it's missing something but we don't know what.

I crouch down and look under Jani's bed. Nothing out of the ordinary. I then look under my bed and see an envelope. No idea why it's under my bed. "Hey Wendell! Come here! I found something!" I exclaim. He closes the dresser drawer and comes over. I hand the envelope over to him and he opens it. I assumed there would be a letter in it. But instead there's a bunch of letters in it. I pick one up. "P". Another says "K". H. D. E. That's all there is in here.

"The hell does all this mean?" Wendell asks.

"I don't know." I say, "but whatever it is, it's obviously done by Rodger and his little 'friends'."

"You think? We need to tell the others about this."

***

All of us showed up at The Clearing later on to discuss what was found. Tom was a bit confused at first. "I don't get it." He says, "why the number 826? And what's with all these letters?" We spread them out across the table. I put them in piles of letters. There are 3 E's, 2 O's, 3L's, 2 T's, 3 H's, a P, an I, a W, an S, a Y, a K, and a D. I don't know what they mean but we know they make some sort of word or phrase.

"Well, what words can we make out of these letters?" Dex asks.

"Call me crazy but do you guys see the word 'spiked'?" Toby asks. I take out some of the letters and arrange then to see that they do, in fact, spell "spiked".

"Nice one Toby." Todd says. "What about the word 'key'?" I take more letters and we see the word key in the jumble.

"Until we can figure out what this means, what do we do?" I ask.

"Well we're not going back to our normal lives since being trapped here ain't normal." Toby complains.

"I think we need to focus more on where the hell Janelle is." Wendell says.

"These letters and the numbers obviously have to lead to where they've taken her. What we need to find out is why they're leading us to her this way." I say.

"And we need to find out how to get Bruno out of that coma," Todd asks, "Speaking of which, how is he?"

"Still knocked out." Steele says, "like I said, who knows how long it'll be until he wakes up. Or if he wakes up at all."

"Don't you dare say that!" I say.

"Sorry."

"Look, I'm just gonna go for a while." Wendell says.

"Why?" Tom asks, "Isn't it a better idea for us to stick together?"

"It is. That's why Todd's coming with me."

"What're you guys going to do?" I ask.

"Make-shift weapons," my cousin says, "it's better to be armed than to be unarmed."

"You know how to make weapons?" Steele asks.

"Of course. My dad showed me how. You know, before he went crazy and kicked me out." The two then head off. I think uncle Richard did mention something to me once about showing Wendell how to make a bow with a few sticks and some string. He did bring his pocketknife with him so that might help a little bit.

Meanwhile, Tom and I go back to this puzzle what Rodger left for us. "What do you think 'spiked' could mean?" Toby asks.

"Maybe that's how they're torturing her." Steele says. I scowl at him and he puts his paws up suggesting the my-bad gesture.

"Guys, mind if I point something out?" Dex says.

"Sure." I say. He sits next to me and he scrambles up the word "spiked". I'm about to ask what he's doing, but then he starts to spell something else. P. I. L. L. O. W. S.

"Pillows?" Tom asks.

"Think about it," Dex says, "whoever trashed Angie's cabin spray painted one of the pillows. Maybe there's something hidden inside of of the pillowcases."

"Kitty, you're a genius." Tom says.

"So, we should search the cabins again?" I ask.

"Just our three cabins." Tom says. "Maybe we'll find something."

"Maybe we'll find some sort of key." Toby says as he points at the other word we spelled.

"What would it unlock?" I ask. We all get up from the table and I grab the letters. I don't want them lost in the wind or possible stolen by Rodger's crew. I stuff the letters in my jean pockets and we head off towards the cabins again.

"The key could probably unlock some kind of restraints Jani's held in." Steele says. I scowl at him again. "Seriously? I'm just joking."

"You know, maybe you should just shut up, or I will seriously mess you up."

"Don't push it Tripp. I haven't forgotten that you got off the hook for murder."

"Steele! That was out of self defense." I exclaim. I'm seriously this close to popping that cat like a zit.

Dex and Tom went off to their own cabin. Steele and Toby went to Wendell and Todd's and I went to my own. I barely cleaned up the place after we found it trashed. Bruno's staying with Tom until he wakes up to help.

I open the door to the place and shut the door. I go to Janelle's bed and reach a paw into her pillow case. Nothing. Hold on, maybe there's something in the pillow itself. I knead my paws throughout the entire pillow and find nothing out of the ordinary.

I look over at my bed. Maybe it was left inside one of my pillows since the envelope was under my bed. I put Jani's pillow down and walk over to my own. I reach underneath and inside the case. My fingers touch something cold and metal. I grab it and take it out of the case.

"So there was a key after all!" I exclaim. I examine the key. It's the size of my palm. Its also the stereotypical shape of a key. A circle where you grab it and two prongs poke out on the other end of the key. It's bronze, but it has no rust. So the "pillows" and "keys" were literal.

I grab my phone and text Tom about the key. He then calls me and I answer. "You found a key?" Tom asks.

"Yes." I say. Although it's not part of the mystery exactly, I ask, "did you find anything over there?"

"A map."

"A map of what?"

"The general area. From the look of it, the camp itself and about 5 miles beyond it."

"Keep it out. I'll be right over."

"Will do." We hang up on each other and I leave the cabin. As I walk over there, I turn the key over on my paws and can't stop thinking about it. What's this for? I ask myself, why are they leaving clues for us? Why not just kill us on the spot?

Steele runs into me as we head the same direction. "Find anything?" I ask.

"A slip of paper with numbers on it." Steele hold it up for me and I look at it.

"These are coordinates." I say. "Tom said he found a map. This is probably where Janelle is!" We immediately run for Tom's cabin. It's quite a distance but we do make it. When I open the door, we're both half out of breath and we face our attention to Tom.

"Where's the map?" I ask.

"It's right here." Tom kneels on the ground between the beds. Me, Steele, and Dex kneels right beside him. In front of us is the map Tom mentioned. It's a classic roadmap like you'd see on google maps. There's a big area in the middle that says Camp Roadrock. There's a bunch a squares in the middle of that area. My guess is that's the cabins. The one that's most to the west is Cabin one.

"Where's the key you found." Tom asks. I reach into my pocket and give it to him. He looks at it closely. "Huh, doesn't look familiar."

"How about this." Steele hands him the coordinates he found in... I don't know which one he found it in, but it was in Wendell's cabin. Tom takes it and he looks at the numbers.

"Do you know where that is?" I ask.

"Well..." Tom takes out his phone and opens Mapquest. He enters the coordinates and it tells the location. Since this map Tom received is only big enough for a small town so he has to zoom in enough so that he can see precisely where it is. Wherever it is, it has to have the next clue. Or better yet, where Janelle is being held captive.

"Get me a marker." Tom says. I scan the room and see one on the table. I run to it, grab it and hand it to Tom. The arctic fox takes it and, looking back and forth between the phone and the map, makes a small X on the page then turns his phone off. He points where the mark is. "That... is where we need to go."

"Nice job foxy." Dex says. They kiss briefly but then I pointed out.

"What's they key for then?" I ask.

"Don't know. But if we don't get to that landmark right now, we won't be able to find Janelle." Dexter says.

"Hold on, that's out of the campground." Tom points out, "if we don't stay in the campgrounds, Rodger and his friends will kill us all."

"Then why would they leave clues as to where to find Jani?" I ask.

"Good point." Tom says. "When should we head out there?"

"Now." I say firmly. I need to know where my best friend is. Or if she's still alive, which is one of the worst scenarios. "We should leave now."

"Why?" Tom asks.

"Because, who's gonna stop us?"

"Well... can you guys promise not to tell anyone?"

"What's up?" Tom walks over to his dresser and faces Dexter. "Help me?" He puts his paws on the side of the dresser indicating he needs help pushing it. The tiger looks at him like he's strange; but he does get up and he helps him push his dresser a few feet. I look at the floor. There's an outline of a square with a dial on the top. A secret floor safe? Awesome.

Tom enters the combination in his safe and it swing open. He reaches in and he takes out a gun. It's orange and strange shaped. "A flare gun?" I ask. Tom nods. He walks over and carefully puts it in my paw.

"Be careful with this." He says, "it's not sensitive and you need to press the trigger hard to fire it but it can pretty much kill someone right away."

"Why give it to me?"

"Rodger said he has help and it's obvious they're armed. So... now we are too."

***

We manage to find some sort of street. According to Tom, were on Brenner street. It's just me, Steele, Dex and Tom. Tom holds the map while I hold the flare gun. I'm an ok shot, I guess; but I should've told Tom that Dex should handle this because I'm not comfortable with killing someone after what happened with Allan. Then again, were being terrorized by a bunch of freaks.

"Did any of you guys figure out what that 826 number is all about?" Steele asks.

"No, but maybe it could be-" I start out.

"It's an address number." Tom says point blank.

"What's that?" I ask.

"An address. 826 Brenner Street. It's an old warehouse that has been abandoned for years. No one goes there because of the rumour that there's radioactive material there; but I know that it's not true."

"How can you tell that?" Steele asks

"Because I've been there to prove it isn't true. It just has old planks of wood." We walk down the road for another mile. Only two cars past as we do so. What kills me is that we can't do anything about it since we can't leave the area or we could all be killed.

We come across an old building once the trees start to dissipate. The windows are shattered, the bricks are very dark red, the door even looks a bit creaky.

We walk right in front of it but we all look so scared to open it. I roll my eyes and push on the door. It opens with a large creak and I take a look inside. It looked old and abandoned like Tom said. As I look around. There's not much to see. There the American flag on the right, high on the wall and a podium. Whatever this place was, it looks like a meeting room. But why here? And where's Janelle?

The four of us look around. There's not much here to see, though. We open some closet sorts but nothing that can determine what we should be looking for.

"What're we looking for?" Dex asks.

"Not sure." I say. Steele grumbles to himself and he frantically looks through one of the rooms.

"I'm tired of these bastards! What the fuck are you trying to hide from us!?!" He yells as he slams the door hard. When he does, I hear something fall.

"What did you do?" I ask climbing out of the closet and looking around. Immediately, I notice that there's a giant framed poster on the ground. We all run to it and I look up. There's a crack in the ceiling almost the exact same length as this frame. Whoever is giving us clues obviously wanted us to see this. Plus, they knew Steele has an anger problem and would slam a door shut so they set it up so if it happens, it would fall and they'd notice.

"What the hell is this?" I ask. The photo looks vague. It's mostly dark with a few streaks of light. I see a barred window on the left that's letting in light. In the center is a chair and what looks like rope. There's also something glistening just above the beam of light.

"Holy shit on a shingle." Steele says.

"What?" I ask.

"Can you tell?" He kneels down and puts a paw on the photo, "this is Janelle."